Research On The Impact Of Public Health Emergencies On Health Insurance Operation

The outbreak of epidemic has the characteristics of phases,but in the whole history of mankind,the epidemic is a normal,there are only differences in the time,place,scale and degree of occurrence.In the 21 st century,major public health emergencies occurred in China,including SARS in 2003 and COVID-19 at the end of2019.During this period,with the transformation of government functions to a serviceoriented government,the reform of social security system and the increase of people’s demand for medical and health services,China’s health insurance business has achieved great development.As the decision maker of risk management and one of the main bodies to deal with the epidemic,whether insurance companies can seize the development opportunities brought by the impact of the epidemic is of great significance to the sustainable operation of the company and the sustainable development of the whole industry.Based on the functional theory of insurance,contingency theory and strategic management theory,this paper sorts out the typical public health emergencies represented by SARS and COVID-19,and analyzes the impact of public health emergencies on health insurance marketing,underwriting,claims settlement and investment from the theoretical level.The logical framework of theoretical analysis is undertaken at the empirical level.First,the marketing and underwriting are summarized as health insurance consumption,and the public health emergencies on health insurance consumption is empirically analyzed by taking two typical public health emergencies that broke out in China-SARS and COVID-19 as examples.Using the panel data of 252 prefecture-level cities in China from 2002 to 2003,this paper empirically analyzed the impact of SARS epidemic on the consumption of health insurance in China by using DID.The results showed that the outbreak of SARS significantly promoted the increase of the consumption for health insurance.Then,based on the monthly panel data of 30 provinces and cities from January 2020 to June2022,the panel fixed effect model was used to empirically analyze the impact of COVID-19 on China’s health insurance consumption.The results show that the outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly promoted the consumption of health insurance on the whole.Furthermore,the impact of the epidemic on the consumption of health insurance was significantly heterogeneous after distinguishing the stage of the epidemic’s development,before and after vaccination,and the severity of the epidemic between regions.Second,a comparative analysis of the health insurance loss ratio before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 showed that the epidemic had improved the health insurance loss ratio of the whole industry on the whole,and the health insurance loss ratio of the property and life insurance companies was significantly different during the epidemic period.Third,the comparative analysis of the ROA and the investment structure of typical insurance companies before and after the COVID-19 epidemic shows that the epidemic has reduced the ROA of companies on the whole,and insurance companies are more inclined to stable investment.Finally,based on the above conclusions put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.